Minutes To Midnight
by chibi-chinita
Summary: New Year's fic. What happened at the Resurgam New Year's Eve party, and the aftermath. T for language. Because, you know, this has Maria in it.


**Lame title is lame. OTL (and yes, said lame title is shamelessly stolen from Linkin Park's album :P)**

**Warning: this story includes an OC so if you dislike them then TURN AWAY. NOWWW.  
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**Anddd... Happy 2011 everyone! :)**

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* * *

Minutes to Midnight**

On New Year's Day, Maria Torres woke up with a hangover.

The hangover in itself wasn't unusual. On nights when she wouldn't have to work the next day, the EMT enjoyed heading out to the local bar and having a drink or two... of course, being unable to tolerate alcohol, she'd usually wake up the next morning feeling like the world had caved in on her head.

But today's hangover was different. After the usual moaning and groaning, she suddenly realized that she wasn't in her own bed... she was in a different bed.

A bed that resided in the guest room of one Doctor Gabriel Cunningham.

Her brain suddenly exploded into swears. _Oh shit oh god oh damn if I slept with Gabe last night lightning please strike me down nowwwwwww..._

She stood there for a while, silently swearing and praying that she hadn't done anything stupid. A few minutes passed and no lightning struck her down, so she figured that nothing too regrettable had happened the last night. Still, if she was hung over and in someone else's bed (admitted, it was the guest room bed, but it was still _someone else's bed_) she thought that she had better find out what happened last night.

_But if I did something embarrassing, and pictures of it get up on Facebook, some bitch is going to die._

Maria walked out of the guest room, noticing that she was still wearing her own clothes, a stupid tight black dress that Tomoe had made her wear for the New Year's party last night. "Well, at least I know I didn't do _that_ with anyone... I think." she muttered to herself. She looked around for a minute or so, located the bathroom, went inside, and promptly threw up. "God. When am I gonna learn that alcohol does not work out with me?" she groaned, holding her stomach.

"You're _never_ gonna learn, Maria. It's part of your nature." Gabe appeared at the doorway, smirking at her.

"Not the time for jokes, Gabe," Maria grumbled. "Seriously. _What happened last night_?"

Gabe suddenly looked uncomfortable. He tugged nervously at his necktie (_what, a necktie at seven in the morning? Someone didn't change out of their clothes last night... well, I guess I'm not one to talk, _Maria thought) and looked away. "Well... um..."

"I didn't sleep with you, did I?" she asked bluntly. _Please say no please say no please say no_, a voice chanted nervously inside her head.

"_Hell no_, woman! You think I'm insane?"

_Well then. _Insulted, although slightly grateful at the same time, Maria threw down her trump card. "If you don't tell me what happened, I'll look at RONI's camera and find those pictures that she took of _you and Shelly~_"

"Gah! Why don't you ask the kid? You seemed to be awfully _close _to him last night," Gabe shot back.

"The kid?" Maria wondered who he was talking about, then shrugging, crossed her arms. "Whatever. Thanks for letting me stay the night! See you on Monday!" She disappeared through the front door in a flash.

"Jeez, that bipolar woman is taking years off my life every day I have to put up with her..." Gabe mumbled. "I can't wait until I'm old enough to retire."

* * *

_Should auld acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind? Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and days of auld lang syne~_

Maria shut off the radio in her office. She had just checked on Facebook— so far, no one had posted pictures from last night's party, and so she couldn't tell if she'd done anything stupid in her inebriated state. "God, who _would_ know what happened? Half the doctors were drunk, including me, yeah, I admit it, and the other half were trying to get drunk! Hell, even _Tomoe_ was drunk, and the ones who weren't old enough to drink were all playing Wii in the next room!"

A grin returned to her face as she remembered something. "Wait. There was _one _person who wasn't completely passed out that night..."

A few minutes later, Maria rang the doorbell of a house around the corner from Resurgam. A teenage boy with messy black hair opened the door.

"Hi, Roy," she greeted him.

"Oh, hi, Ate Maria. Are you here for Chi?" When she nodded, he turned around and bellowed up the stairs, "_Ate! Maria's here for you!_"

"_One minute_!" a girl yelled back. "I've almost beaten this boss! Die, Ridley! Dieee!"

"Ate Chi gets really violent when she's playing," the boy said, looking up the stairs. "She'll either die in a minute or so, or she'll win and explode into gloating." They waited, listening to the girl upstairs yelling at the game. "Jump! Come on, jump! _Shoot him, dammit!_ Oh great, I bet Mom heard me say that."

"Uh, wait a minute," Roy muttered. "She usually dies around this part..." A loud whoop was heard. "Looks like she survived. Wait for a while and we'll see if she dies or not."

"_Oh yeah!_ Who's stronger now?" a yell came from upstairs, just as he finished his sentence. "Yep, she won," Roy observed. "She's probably clicking through a cutscene."

A few minutes passed and the girl— Chi— came down the stairs holding a Wii remote in one hand. "Hi, Ate Maria! You wanted to see me?"

"Yeah, I wanted you to come for a walk with me.. What were you doing upstairs?" Maria asked.

"Killing a giant pterodactyl thing that killed my character's parents," Chi said matter-of-factly. "Thanks for getting the door, Roy. Let me go ask my mom—"

"Mom and Dad left for their friends' party while you were killing Ridley," Roy interrupted.

"All right then, see you later!" Chi put the Wii remote down on the stairs and ran out the door.

"You're going to leave me all alone with Drew and Mari?" the boy asked in an injured tone, but by then Chi was out the door and down the block, Maria following behind.

"So what did you want to ask me about?" Chi asked, slowing to a walk and fingering her Resurgam ID. Sixteen years old, Chi volunteered at Resurgam during the summers and sometimes after school. She was very proud of her ID and wore it a lot, even when she didn't really need to. Some girls had jewelry, Chi had her ID.

"I wanted to ask you about what happened at the New Year's Eve party last night," Maria said.

"Oh, that? I was wondering why Dr. Gabe called to warn me..." Chi trailed off. "It wasn't that bad, really. Everyone got drunk, you got _really_ drunk, we counted down the last ten seconds of the year, and you and Kuya CR kissed each other." She said it in the same matter-of-fact tone that she'd said "Killing a giant pterodactyl thing that killed my character's parents", even though the news she'd just given Maria was even weirder than that.

"_What?__!_" Maria yelled, a bit louder than intended. "I kissed _him_?"

"Sure, why not? It's better than what one of the nurses, what's-his-face, Darnell, was betting on... he was betting on you and Dr. Gabe getting together. Hikaru and I were making bets on when you and Kuya CR would finally get around to it. I won," she added with an evil grin. "Now he owes me a bubble tea~"

"Why did I do that?" Maria asked, as the pieces started to click together in her mind. Gabe always referred to CR-S01 as "the kid", like how she always called him "_estúpido_" or some other random offensive endearment. "_Why don't you ask the kid? You seemed to be awfully close to him last night_," Gabe's voice echoed in her mind.

While part of her brain was putting the pieces together, another part of her brain was raging about how the nurses and volunteers made bets on if she would "get with" some of the other doctors, and yet another part was thinking _You know, Maria, you pick nice people to kiss when you're drunk. It's been blatantly obvious that you liked him anyway.  
_

She shook her head to dislodge those last few thoughts from her brain, and tried to hide the slight blush that was spreading over her face._  
_

Chi, oblivious to Maria's inner turmoil, replied. "I don't know. Apparently it's some sort of American tradition to kiss someone else at midnight on New Year's. Maybe you were thinking of that. How should I know?" She shrugged.

"How'd it happen?" Maria wondered. The two of them walked into a coffee shop, bought some drinks (coffee for Maria, hot chocolate for Chi) and sat down at one of the tables.

"Well..." Chi started off.

"It was kind of late when the real fun started— you know, watching everyone getting drunk and all. I think Dr. Gabe tried to get me to drink something, but I signed one of those "I swear not to drink or do drugs over winter break" things at school. They were giving out free candy canes if you signed one of them, and I forgot my lunch that day so I was really hungry. Not that candy canes really fill you up or anything, but it distracted my stomach for a while. Then I mooched off of Hikaru. He gave me some of his fried rice. It was good...

"I guess I should get to the point, huh? So anyway. Everyone started getting all weird because they were drunk, except for the doctors' kids, who were all playing_ Super Smash Bros. Brawl_ in the next room. You know, they can't drink anyway. So we were all hanging around in the main room, Hikaru and I were just chilling out and you grown-ups were all drinking. I suppose this is the one night a year where you guys get drunk?

"Anyway. Dr. Naomi turned on the TV in the main room and one of the doctors broke out the karaoke. Dr. Gabe can't sing very well... Dr. Naomi and what's-his-face, the little guy, I never learned his name, they did a cute little duet thing. Dr. Tomoe sang this song called "Butterfly", and you did a karaoke song that Dr. Gabe picked, I liked it, but you didn't look too pleased with him. Kuya CR sang something too, and then Dr. Hank sang. After all the karaoke was done we started watching the countdown, the one with Ryan Seacrest and everything. It was a few minutes to midnight, and we were all standing around the TV watching the countdown.

"And then it got to midnight, the ball dropped, everyone cheered, you guys kissed each other. That's all really." Chi ended her story with a long slurp of her hot chocolate and a shrug. "Do you think I could get them to put some extra marshmallows in this thing for me?"

Maria stood up abruptly. "Thanks for letting me know, Chi. I've got to go now."

"Are you going to go see Kuya CR?" Chi asked, looking up at the EMT. By the time she finished asking her question, Maria was gone and out the door.

"I forgot to mention the important part," the teenager muttered as she finished off her hot chocolate. "_She_ was totally inebriated and all, but Kuya wasn't drunk."

* * *

_Dammit. He probably hates me now. We had a nice friendship going and I had to go and kiss him. God, someone shoot me now._

"_Estúpido_!" a voice rang through the back hallways of Resurgam.

CR-S01, who had been sleeping peacefully, was suddenly jolted out of his slumber by a loud yell echoing through the hallway. He was probably wrong, maybe he'd been dreaming again, but he thought he'd heard Maria's voice. The clang of his cell's gate opening followed, and _she_ pushed through, looking like she was about to kill someone.

_Oh damn. She probably heard what she did last night... What are my odds of surviving today? _The surgeon looked around for somewhere— no, anywhere to hide, but this being a prison cell, he was forced to simply draw his legs up under his lab coat and sort of cower under her menacing gaze.

"Um... Morning, Maria," he said, looking up at her. "You feeling all right? I mean, considering the amount of alcohol you had last night, you probably have a massive hangover right now, and..." _Gah! I'm babbling! Shut up, me!_

A second later, it hit him. _Great. I'm talking to myself. This, on top of kissing _Maria_ of all people, has probably proven me officially insane.  
_

"_Estúpido_, I heard what happened last night," she said, in an oddly calm tone. He opened his mouth to say something, but she cut him off. "I'm sorry if I screwed anything up with what I did. Kissing you last night was a stupid idea."

"But—" The prisoner started to say something, and Maria cut him off again. "We were both drunk, so let's just forget about what happened last night and move on, all right?"

He waited to see if she had anything else to say, then finally said his piece. "Maria... You were drunk. I wasn't."

"What the—" Maria's mouth dropped open in shock. "You weren't drunk, and you kissed me anyway? Are— are you insane?"

_Dammit,_ she thought. _Why? Why does my life have to be so freaking confusing?  
_

"Well, um," the prisoner rubbed the back of his head and looked down. "I've kind of liked you for a while."

Maria's mouth fell open, and CR-S01 started to wonder if he could get out the door before Maria began to kill him. He put his feet on the floor again and started to inch his way toward the door to his prison cell, then realized, _Dammit. I'm a _prisoner_. The door won't open. _The surgeon cursed his father for ditching him. He didn't feel much remorse, since he was sure that he was about to die, and he could patch things up with his dear old dad in the afterlife. Or something like that anyway.

"...Uh, are you going to just stand there?" he finally asked. Maria was still standing there with her mouth hanging wide open, when suddenly all the words she was struggling to come up with exploded out.

"What the hell are you talking about are you insane is the world going to end Mr. Emotionless likes somebody oh god the apocalypse is coming somebody find a bomb shelter dammit I like you too dumbass how did it take us this long to figure things out—" she was abruptly silenced by CR-S01 kissing her.

"Maria," he mumbled into her lips, "shut up."

Maria complied with his orders, and it was one of those perfect, amazing kissing scenes, until a boy with black and blue hair ran for his life down the hallway, Chi following him, yelling "_Hikaru, you owe me a bubble tea, dammit! _Wait— oh. Holy. Freaking. Crap."

"What?" Hikaru skidded to a stop slightly down the hall from CR-S01's cell, turned around and looked back. "Oh..."

"Ha-ha! I told you so! Now you owe me a box of Pocky!" Chi crowed. CR-S01 and Maria broke apart and looked up, a murderous glare blazing in Maria's eyes. "Oh. Um. Crap! Run, Hikaru!"

* * *

Chief Esha Patel, walking down the hallway, saw two teenagers— _Hey, it's those volunteer kids, Hikaru and Chi, right?_— run past her, followed shortly by Maria and CR-S01.

_Huh. It's the first day of the new year and already the new recruits have managed to piss Maria off? _she thought, a grin spreading over her face as she noticed Maria holding the prisoner's hand as they ran. _Wow... This is going to be an interesting year.  
_

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**I suck at writing romance scenes D':  
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**_ate _is older sister and _kuya_ is older brother, but it's like "nee-chan" and "nii-chan"— you can use them for people who are like siblings to you.**

**Whoever guesses what game Chi was playing gets one free internets~ :P **

**Hope you liked it, please review! :]  
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